Heads You Win Read online

  Elena had rushed out of the kitchen the moment she heard Mr. Moretti had collapsed. She’d immediately instructed the headwaiter to phone for an ambulance, while she knelt by his side and checked his pulse. It was weak, but he was still alive. Gino asked for the nearest phone.

  “They’ll be here any minute,” Elena said, holding his hand tightly. She wasn’t sure if he could hear her, but then his eyes opened and he attempted a smile.

  It felt like hours before she heard the welcome sound of an approaching ambulance, although in fact it was only seven minutes.

  A moment later two young paramedics were kneeling by Moretti’s side. While one checked his pulse, the other placed an oxygen mask over his face. They then lifted the gray-faced old gentleman onto a stretcher, and carried him out of the restaurant as concerned customers stood aside to allow them through.

  “Phone his wife, Gino,” said Elena as she accompanied them out onto the street, still holding Mr. Moretti’s hand. He was lifted into the ambulance and strapped in. A few seconds later they were speeding toward the hospital.

  Elena tried to remain calm, while praying to a god of whose existence she was no longer certain. The paramedic in the back of the ambulance went through a routine he had carried out countless times; first, wrapping a pad around the patient’s right arm and attaching a lead to a small screen that traced a line showing little mountains and valleys bobbing up and down. Suddenly, without warning, the mountains and valleys became a flat uninterrupted desert. The paramedic immediately switched into emergency mode, thumping the patient’s chest every few seconds, pausing occasionally to check the monitor. After several minutes, when there was still no response, he finally gave up.

  “We’ve lost him,” he said quietly, and slumped back, aware that any further attempt at resuscitation would serve no purpose.

  “No!” cried Elena, not wanting to accept his words. Something else he’d experienced many times.

  “Was he your father?” he asked sympathetically, as he placed a sheet over Mr. Moretti’s face.

  “No. But no father could have done more for his daughter.”

  * * *

  “Did you see Charlie in Dream?” asked Ben, as they sat at the bar.

  “All eight performances,” admitted Sasha. “Even the matinees.”

  “That bad?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “There’s not much I can do while Oberon is continuing his amorous performance offstage as well as on. I seem to be cast in the role of Bottom.”

  “I think you’ll find he’s already moved on to his next part.”

  “But I saw them—” Sasha stopped in midsentence.

  “That was before the critics hailed Rory as a future star, while Charlie barely got a mention.”

  “But I thought she was wonderful,” said Sasha. “Every bit as good as him. Better in fact.”

  “Pity the critics didn’t agree with you,” said Ben. “But then, they weren’t to know she was in love with someone else.”

  “There’s someone else?”

  “No, idiot. Honestly, I sometimes wonder how such a clever man can be so dumb. Every time I see Charlie, she only talks about you. So go and cheer her up. Start by telling her how wonderful you thought she was as Titania.”

  “I don’t think she’d welcome that from me.”

  “Sasha, for God’s sake, wake up, get off your backside and do something about it.”

  It was another twenty-four hours before Sasha got off his backside and did something about it.

  * * *

  Sasha found he couldn’t concentrate during his morning supervision. He didn’t eat lunch, and skipped his afternoon lecture, before finally taking Ben’s advice and setting off in the direction of Newnham.

  This time, when he arrived at the college, he didn’t creep around the back and climb up the fire escape, but walked through the front gate. He registered his name with the porter before making his way slowly up the stairs to the second floor. Several times he nearly turned back, and might have done so, if he hadn’t heard Ben’s voice in his ear repeating “Pathetic idiot.” He hesitated once again when he reached Charlie’s door, then took a deep breath and knocked.

  He was about to give up, when the door opened. For a few moments the two of them just stared at each other.

  “Et tu, Brute,” Charlie eventually managed.

  “Wrong play,” said Sasha. “I came to tell you there is nothing so fair in all Verona.”

  “But you climbed onto someone else’s balcony before mine.”

  “You saw me?” said Sasha, turning scarlet.

  “Both times. And it didn’t improve my love life when I jumped out of bed and ran to the window only to find you’d already disappeared.”

  Sasha burst out laughing.

  “Rory left almost as quickly as you did. But come in,” she said, taking his hand, “because that was only a dress rehearsal.”

  * * *

  When Sasha returned to his college a couple of hours later, no one could have failed to notice the satisfied grin on his face, except perhaps for the porter.

  “Telephone message for you, Mr. Karpenko,” he said, handing him a slip of paper.

  Sasha unfolded it, and once he’d read the single sentence, he asked when she had phoned.

  “Just over an hour ago, sir. I tried your room but you weren’t there, and no one seemed to know where you were, as you’d missed your afternoon lecture.”

  “No, I was … If anyone asks, please tell them I’ve had to go to London at short notice, and I don’t expect to be back for at least a couple of days.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Within an hour, Sasha was stepping onto the platform at King’s Cross. When he arrived back at the little flat above the restaurant in Fulham, he found his mother more distressed than he’d seen her since his father’s death. She had taken the evening off, something he’d never known her to do before.

  * * *

  The large turnout for the funeral held at St. Mary’s, Fulham, the following week, bore testimony to just how popular Mr. Moretti was, far beyond the boundaries of the local community. Sasha’s moving eulogy led Mr. Quilter to remark, “As they say in Yorkshire, lad, you did him proud.”

  After the ceremony was over and the coffin had been lowered into the ground, Sasha accompanied his mother back to the restaurant, where family, friends, and customers came to pay their respects. Many of them swapped stories of personal kindnesses they’d experienced, none more touching than Elena’s.

  When the last guest had departed, Elena accompanied the grieving widow home.

  “You must go back to work, Elena,” said Mrs. Moretti when the light began to fade. “Salvatore would have expected nothing less.”

  Elena reluctantly rose from her chair and gave the old lady one last hug before putting her coat back on. She was just about to leave when Mrs. Moretti said, “Would you be kind enough to drop by sometime tomorrow, my dear? I think we ought to discuss what I have planned for the restaurant.”

  * * *

  Sasha didn’t return to Cambridge the following day, but headed in the opposite direction, arriving at Oxford well in time to join his teammates at Merton, who had all double-checked the date, time, and place.

  But the Oxford team had licked their wounds, and were lying in wait for them. By the time Sasha had worked out what they were up to, it was too late, and Cambridge lost the match 4½ to 3½. Sasha explained to Dr. Streator on the journey back to the Fens how Jenkins had beaten them even before they made their opening moves.

  “He did what?” said Streator.

  “Mr. Jenkins broke with the convention of playing their best player against our best player. He put their weakest player up against me, clearly willing to sacrifice that game. So their strongest player played our second board, and they were at an advantage for the other seven games.”

  “The Welsh bastard,” said Streator.